Tension between Iraq’s Shiite leaders mounted yesterday as the toll from protests in central Baghdad on Saturday increased to six killed: five demonstrators loyal to the fiery cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and one policeman.
At least 174 other protesters were injured in clashes that pitted police against al-Sadr’s followers, who had gathered to demand an overhaul of a commission that supervises elections, ahead of a provincial poll due in September.
The clashes broke out as the protesters attempted to cross the bridge that links Tahrir Square where they had gathered and the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings, embassies and international organizations.
Photo: Reuters
In a statement reacting to the killing of his followers on Saturday evening, al-Sadr said: “Their blood won’t have been shed in vain.”
Several Katyusha rockets hit the Green Zone on Saturday evening, but there were no casualties, a military spokesman said.
The rockets seem to have been fired from the city’s Baladiyat District, where al-Sadr has many followers.
Photo: EPA
The growing tensions come at a bad time for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi who is trying to focus on a critical battle with the Islamic State group in Mosul, the last major urban stronghold of the Sunni militants in northern Iraq.
Four of the five protesters killed were hit by bullets and the fifth died of unknown causes, according to an updated casualties toll given by an Iraqi Ministry of the Interior official.
Most of the injured were treated for choking on tear gas, he said.
Al-Sadr said the electoral commission is favorable to his Shiite rival, former Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, a politician close to Iran whom he accuses of corruption.
The cleric said his supporters wanted to get near the Green Zone to make their voices heard by decisionmakers and had no intention of storming it again.
Al-Abadi ordered an investigation into the violence amid claims by the interior ministry that some demonstrators carried firearms and knives.
Al-Sadr said his followers were peaceful.
In a statement, al-Maliki’s Dawa Party accused al-Sadr without naming him of trying to “distract the Iraqi people in sedition in order to prevent the efforts to get rid of DAESH,” using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
Al-Sadr is openly hostile to US policies in the Middle East and has a troubled relationship with Iraqi political groups allied with Iran.
His followers held several demonstrations last year to press for anti-corruption reforms and stormed the Green Zone after violent clashes with security forces.
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